Joe Budden has his fans on the brink of insanity awaiting Padded Room. The composition had been pushed back from the fall of 2008 to the chagrin of his “internet soldiers,” loyalists that ride-n-die for the New Jersey rhyme animal. The Padded Room is here, but how crazy does Joe get with it? “Now I […]

Amazing isn’t it? Just when you think when you have a handle on music, something arrives and throws your thought process asunder. Hopefully, Tale of the Tape has been able to do that for you with this mixtape game. Even if it hasn’t flipped your wig professor, you are definitely more honorable each week for […]

So, my name is Chuck “Jigsaw” Creekmur and I am one of the two co-founders of this website. I’ve been looking at this Top 5 Dead Or Alive AllHipHop series like, “I want to tell the people my list…but I don’t want my favorite rappers to get crucified, by the Ill Community!” Not that anybody […]

It is difficult for most to recognize that African-American history evolves by the second. Though a consensus of its milestones has not been reached, perfect shoe-ins would include Harriet Tubman’s underground railroad, Ida B. Wells’ campaign against lynching, Marcus Garvey’s UNIA movement, the Harlem Renaissance, and Martin Luther King’s fight for Civil Rights, among others. […]

If any writer on this site tells you Hip-Hop isn’t in their soul, then they aren’t really a colleague of mine. We do this for real son. Why else do you come to the Tale of the Tape? You know at the end of the day, when the chips are down, and they are shoving […]

As usual, Nas was incredible at Eastern Michigan University on February 6. The Queenbridge-bred rapper performed songs from Illmatic, all the while celebrating the seminal album’s 15th anniversary. Nas told the crowd, “Some of y’all were two when this came out.” A telling but true statement of how legendary of an emcee he remains to […]

Tale of the Tape is here, once again, to keep your ears clean and your mind sharp from the best and the worst of the (mix) tape scene. And this week, it just reminded us that it, like the relationship between Kanye and the media, it was all good just a week ago.   Why […]

    You may or may not have seen the cartoon on Spike with the Black Samurai roaming around Japan slicing and dicing everyone in his path, trying to find those responsible for his father’s murder. The animation is top-notch, however the confusing plot and dialogue coupled with the voice of Samuel “I don’t read […]

    Cappadonna has experienced the best and worst of times as a Hip-Hop artist. Not many can attest to rocking international tours one year, and later choosing homelessness as a symbolic rebellion against a materialistic world. Through it all, Cappadonna has remained one of Wu Tang’s sharpest swords, and he seeks to solidify that […]

Here we go again.  Remember the last sip of hot chocolate and how it taste so much better than what came before it?  Remember the first time you bussed?  No matter how many times you get off afterward, nothing really compares to the first.So here we have the first salvo from Cuban Linx 2, not […]

The more things change the more they stay the same.  Familiarity breeds contempt. Two cliche’s that don’t necessarily mean anything when you’re talking about classic music and today we match off two albums by two similar groups: Daily Operation by Gangstarr and Mecca And the Soul Brother by Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth.Both groups were […]

Beside a knack for freaking ridiculous beats, if RZA possesses anything it’s resounding confidence. Still, when certain Wu-Tang Clan members (ahem…Raekwon) went rogue and publicly disparaged The Abbot’s beats selections for 2007’s 8 Diagrams, you couldn’t help but wonder if it shook his self-belief. However, “It didn’t f**k up my confidence but it f**ked up […]

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Welcome back good people. It’s the one and only, The Honorable Adam Thomas here to give you the drop on the latest and greatest from the world of mixtapes. Some other sites try to keep up, but who else you know does five a pop, every week like we do.   On the cool, this […]

Welcome back good people. It’s the one and only, The Honorable Adam Thomas here to give you the drop on the latest and greatest from the world of mixtapes. Some other sites try to keep up, but who else you know does five a pop, every week like we do.   On the cool, this […]

New week, new faces, but it is still The Honorable One keeping your head straight when it comes to the Tale Of The Tape. This week we keep it a little fresher than most with some names that don’t have the spotlight on them mixed with some five star generals.   Kicking off the week […]

    In Hip-Hop, death is not the end, but a beginning. The untimely passing of a Hip-Hop artist inevitably ensures their work takes on a transcendent quality, whether or not the art justifies the perception change. Christopher Wallace, one of the culture’s biggest legends, is no different.   Before The Notorious B.I.G.’s highly anticipated […]

2009 is here and the streets are uncertain.  The economy is deteriorating. Political change and turmoil abound and socially we have police killing unarmed cooperating men.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.The 1990s had similar issues and historically, in the tradition of Melle Mel, MC’s have generally risen to the occasion […]

Guess who’s back?  Its no question, The Honorable One is here once again to get TALE OF THE TAPE roaring into 2009. Haters take a deep breath, the column that snatches your eyes for a bit of time each week is prepped and ready to deliver the best in mixtape analysis across the board.   […]

Well, well, well. We welcome supporters, complainers, and swagger jackers alike back to the trillest column in Hip-Hop, TOP 5 DEAD OR ALIVE. Yes we return with more of the real.   This week we holler at the young boy Juelz Santana for his top five list. The Harlem Diplomat has recently upped his profile […]